Lunch Stairwell - a secular involvement
Thursday Reads: A company in the States had this one issue that had their employees being pinpointed for the increasing casualty that happened. The story goes as followed and it's called the lunch time stairway (life story by the way):
It started out as some employees had to claim work injury insurance from the company for being injured while at work. As time goes by, more and more employees reported their incident and all of it were legit cases. However, this incident only happened mostly at this particular stairwell leading to the lunch place which is situated at a level lower.
This incident was overlooked by management until its injury got more serious - increasing the cost to cover employees insurance. From normal slip leading to scrap back or knees to sprained ankles to finally an incident of fractured bones.
Soon more effort and cost were incurred to educate the employees and signs were placed near the area to 'educate' them but none of it worked. Until one day, this particular action led to an ultimate solution that solved this problem.
That brilliant action was when one of the management asked how are all this still happening when rectification was done (anti-slips, making sure stairs were dry e.t.c.) and signs/education were implemented. This led to the management asking those that were involved in those incidents and what they found out this:
"If we were late to go down to the lunch hall, we would not be getting sits. As a result, we would be having our lunch standing up."
It makes sense now because after a few hours of doing work standing up, sitting down is more than a privilege but a necessity to sit all because your legs need to rest. The solution after which was to just spend all effort and money to purchase a few more chairs and tables. Those un-thought action actually had the casualty went down to zero.
This story actually explains how Safety culture will only be effective when it involves everyone in the system. Safety is not about drilling it into ONLY employees but this culture should be adopted from top management to bottom workers and other ways too. Feedback and finding the root cause of the problem is the catalyst to problem solving especially when it comes to recurring safety lapse even after rectification has been done a few times
Safety lapses can be handled and rectified by having someone overseeing safety aspects but it will still not be effective with poor system and non-in depth dissecting of problems currently faced. There are consultant and advisory companies that are experts in this field just like what our company does.
SRD Pte Ltd are not only related to construction industry as they do have professionals that are well versed in various trades with experience gathered. To know more about our service, conatct us at 6250 3385 or email us at info@srd.com.sg.
#lunchstories #safetyeducation #safetyadvisory #safetyconsultation
